


Drowning On Dry Land

by lellabeth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Needs a Hug, Coulson Lives, Feels, Fix-It, M/M, OTP forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lellabeth/pseuds/lellabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been three months since Phil died, and Clint hasn’t known how to breathe since then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning On Dry Land

Clint is used to not breathing.

He’s been waterboarded during interrogations and choked during fights. He knows how it feels to have his lungs scream, to have his throat burn and squeeze. There have been whole minutes he’s gone without air, weeks when his ribs were fractured and he could only take wheezing snippets of it at a time.

Now, though, now it’s like he’s drowning and all he’s taking in is saltwater and it’s filling him up and making him sink. He is deadweight, he is panicked and gasping even though it’ll just kill him faster.

It’s been three months since Phil died, and Clint hasn’t known how to breathe since then.

He can’t sleep without flashes of traitorous blue and remembering how it felt to be pulled apart from the inside out. He can’t eat without the phantom flavor sting of every meal Phil ever cooked for him. He can’t speak without tasting the blood-rust of every promise he ever made just to break it, can’t think without wondering whether his brain even belongs to him. And most of all, he can’t breathe without feeling like his chest is being crushed. He’s just waiting for it all to cave in, for his hollow bones to finally give way.

When Natasha sends him a text that reads  _There will be a message with an address in it coming soon. Get there as fast as you can_ , he knows he is not ready for a fight if one is waiting. His hands cannot grip his bow without shaking - the one skill he has always had, the one thing he has always been good at, and he doesn’t even have that anymore.

He doesn’t have anything anymore.

But anything he does have is Tasha’s, so he’s at the address twenty minutes after it comes through. He walks down an empty corridor, eyes scanning what look like hospital rooms, until he comes to a closed door. Clint takes a deep breath before using his body weight to force the door open and stumbling through, arrow nocked.

For a moment, he thinks he’s dead.

He’s sure that he was actually killed in the corridor and now he’s just in purgatory, because he is seeing pale skin and sunken cheeks and blue eyes, but the right blue this time, the best blue.

He is seeing Phil.

It isn’t until Phil smiles, lips trembling as they form his name that Clint realizes he’s actually seeing heaven.

He drops his bow and his hands are shaking still but that’s okay because so are Phil’s, and Phil just wraps Clint’s hands up in his own and holds them so tight he can’t tell where Phil ends and he begins.

Clint has felt like little more than tattered edges one loose stitch away from unraveling for months now, but the touch of Phil’s papery skin against his is enough to heal up everything that is frayed inside him. He climbs onto the hospital bed and just sinks into Phil, melting into arms that have never been anything less than home to a man who had never known one. He’s still so full but it’s not water in his lungs anymore. It’s not water.

Phil’s lips are chapped and almost scratchy when they touch Clint’s forehead, but Clint thinks they’re the best thing he’s ever felt. He rests his face against Phil’s shoulder and feels his heart beat in time with Phil’s and he lets the tears burning his eyes slide down his cheeks.

“I love you,” Phil tells him, whisper-soft into Clint’s good ear.

For the first time in months, Clint breathes.


End file.
